Monday, August 7, 2006

T-shirt entry of the Week - Monday August 7th

Hot butter on a biscuit, my favorite time of the week is here! And this 'un is a good 'un.

But first, let me remind all the young ladies (and bulls), this is a family friendly blog site. So if you think this week's (or next week's) model is especially titillating (in whatever way you may be tittled) remember be nice. We're trying to teach the kiddies how to live right after all. Them's the rules and I expect everybody to follow them there rules.

Speaking of living right, there's some that live right and some that live righter, and some that live so right that little pieces of their rightness just fall off of 'em everywhere they go and other people pick those pieces up because the rightness is so sparkly and beautiful that it makes them realize wow...life really can be something special.

Well, I've been abundantly blessed in my life to have met a lot of inspiring people, but there's this one fella Mitch Lawson that sits right up there on the top.

Mitch and I met about 5 or 6 years ago when he was travelling all over Georgia and Alabama giving a slide show telling people about his 3 month float trip down the Coosa River. He was probably about 21 or 22 at the time, and he was already inspiring entire gymnasiums full of people (he ended up giving that presentation to over 30,000 people) and making them want to protect the Coosa River.

Just a few years later, Mitch and I became exploring buddies, which really means that Mitch would call me up couple of times a month and say, "Hey you wanna go fishing on the Chatooga....hey, you wanna go hike all over the Cohutta's...hey, you wanna float down the Coosawatee." I'm a fool for every time I ever said no, but I didn't say no very often.

Mitch is a natural leader and there are some simple explanations why. One, he loves everything that there is worth loving, he loves it completely and unashamedly, and he can tell the difference too between those things worthy, and those things not. That quality in a person is infectious and it draws people to him. If something's not worth loving, he doesn't hate it, or shun it...he talks about it with other people, he explains it rationally and with conviction. If you have an opposing view, he won't argue, he'll say "Huh," as he ponders it more deeply. Whatever his conviction, it is always rooted in what is right. The term "self centered" is not in any definition of Mitch Lawson.

Two, he's honest and he's humble, two qualities that always seem to occur together. More than any other person I've ever met, Mitch will tell you straight up when he's screwed up. He learns from his mistakes and he shares them with others so they can learn from them too. One of my favorite expressions of his was "I've sure done some humdingers."

I'll wrap it up with one more before everybody gets all choked up and calls his momma (who already knows how great he is by the way). Number three is... Mitch is a HUGE goofball! That is in my top 5 qualities of anybody I want to go following around for very long, and that is the truth. People who take themselves too seriously are bound to expect you to take them seriously too. Pride and ego don't just get in the way of genuine human relationships, they destroy them. The person that Mitch most enjoys laughing at is himself.

I write all this not just because Shannon sent me a photo of him wearing my super retarded cool t-shirt, but because Mitch is one of those essential ingredients to me being on this trip right now. For one, I've heard so many of his personal travel adventures that I recognized how important they'd been in shaping the unique person that he's become. Second, Mitch and Elizabeth his wife (they are truly a heavenly match and their wedding was the most beautiful I ever expect to witness) have courageously flown headfirst into a life of farming full time, and brought all their friends, family, and fortunate passerby into the experience. During, an especially challenging time in my own life, simply being around them, observing the energy and the life they were creating by working hard, being thankful, and sharing abundantly, gave me hope and joy and wisdom.

That's what farming does. Or what it can do. It can create whole communities from nothing but the commitment of two people to live simply and live right.

So meet my buddy Mitch... (and Mitch this officially makes up for all those phone calls I haven't returned. You know how much I hate returning phone calls).


If you want to learn more about Mitch and Elizabeth's farm visit the Local Harvest website at:

http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M12512


If you want to be involved in saving farming....buy something from this man.


All my love my peoples,

--Justin


This entry was posted on 8/7/2006 2:04 PM

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